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Documentary Special: Homeless west

SIMON SANTOW: Hello, I'm Simon Santow and this is a radio current affairs documentary.

The Federal Government wants to halve the rate of homelessness around the country by 2020.

It's an ambitious goal but one organisation working in Western Sydney, where there's an estimated 500 people chronically homelessness, believes the goal can be achieved.

The Wentworth Community Housing Group says it's making significant progress in housing people who've lived on the streets for years and over the past six months, Lindy Kerin has got to know some of the group's clients, who've shared their stories.

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LINDY KERIN: It's early evening in western Sydney. On a dimly lit street in an industrial area near Blacktown, sex workers are on the street corners waiting for customers. Among them is Hannah.

HANNAH: I work on the street and you just give them your prices, they pull up, give 'em your prices, you come to some sort of agreement and you just hop in the car. If they want to see you, you drive off, you do whatever you have to do. That's about it really, you just do the job, see ya later.

LINDY KERIN: Hannah has worked on the streets for 22 years. She says it can be a risky business.

HANNAH: You've really have to have your wits about you, you know, you really cannot drop your guard. Like, for an example, a really good friend of mine, she was eight and a half months pregnant, used to work out here and she was murdered out here. She was shot out here. She was a 28-year-old woman, very nice girl she was and her life was cut short just like that.

LINDY KERIN: What about you, have you been attacked before?

HANNAH: Yes, I've been attacked a couple of times. I've been attacked with a handgun and a knife and I've got a big slash mark across my throat, a butterfly knife.

Yeah, I think every girl that has worked out here has been attacked at one stage or another. Some guys on ice, you know, they get a bit crazy, or they want you to do something that you don't want to do and try and force you. Yeah, there is violence, definitely.

LINDY KERIN: For a large part of the time she's worked on the streets Hannah has been homeless. When I first met her she was living in an abandoned house.

HANNAH: I live in a squat with another working girl. No doors, very cold. We've sort of become accustomed to it. Like, at first we didn't sleep that well obviously, one eye open, but now we've just fallen into it, become accustomed to it because honestly, we have really tried hard for the housing, and we've done all the papers and endless amounts of papers, mind you, and we get the promise of we're on priority, we're on this, we're on that, but here we still are in a squat, working on the streets, so.

LINDY KERIN: And what would it mean to you to have a house?

HANNAH: I would stop working, and I would start with a foundation, and that's where I need to start by getting my own home. But honestly, I do want to stop, but I really, really, really do want a place to live. You know, where I can lock a door actually, that would be a shocker.

LINDY KERIN: As well as concern for her safety, Hannah is facing massive health problems. She was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. That put her at the top of the list for housing with the Wentworth Community Housing organisation.

The group surveyed homeless people in the Penrith, Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains and Blacktown areas of Western Sydney to find the most vulnerable

The manager of community services there is Steph Brennan.

STEPH BRENNAN: We surveyed about 148 people about their health care needs, and these are people who are sleeping rough, or in tents, in cars, or couch surfing, from young people to old, single people in the bush, to families in tents, to Aboriginal people in crowded houses.

We went out in the community and we sought out these people with the help of previous rough sleepers. We surveyed them according to this survey called the Vulnerability Index Survey which identifies people's risk factors and it's based on research that's been validated internationally and we find out who is the most at risk, who has got the most vulnerability factors and then we rank them according to who is most at risk.

So we know that out of the 148 people we surveyed in May the top 50 most vulnerable are the ones that we've got to get to first because they're going to die on the street. They're going to die on the river, in the bush, because the research has shown they die 25 years earlier than people who aren't chronically homeless.

So we use that to maximise our effort and then we partner with all the agencies around. So that's government agencies like Centrelink, Housing NSW, community agencies like ourselves, Wentworth Community Housing, other homelessness services and we come together and we try and pool our resources and our ideas to be able to get these people housed.

LINDY KERIN: The survey was part of a wider program called 50 Lives, 50 Homes. It's a national campaign running in most capital cities that's based on the housing first principle.

STEPH BRENNAN: So most of the capital cities in Australia, plus Townsville and Western Sydney have undertaken a Vulnerability Index Survey and are still surveying all of the rough sleepers in their area or their town.

So we can have a database knowing who's going to be most at risk of dying on the street. So it is a new approach to Australian homelessness sector and housing sector. It's based on the evidence of overseas, in Europe and the United States, where this radical new way or working has been trialled and delivered for 20 odd years.

In New York for example, Pathways to Housing, which uses this approach, has had over an 85 per cent retention rate of people who have been rough sleeping and have stayed in the housing, have become empowered and have had amazing outcomes through this approach.

And this approach treats, it says that everyone has, it's a human right and everyone has a right to housing. We're not going to exclude people because they drink or they're not clean or because of their behaviours or the severity of their problems.

We say give people a house so they can be stable, they can feel secure and then do the work that they need to do and get the support they need to overcome the issues that had them become homeless for such a long time in the first place.

The thing is the support is integral to that because you want to keep people in the housing and what typically has happened is these guys may well have been housed in the past but they haven't been able to stay housed because they haven't had the right support.

LINDY KERIN: The Wentworth Community Housing group estimates there are more than 500 people living rough in the region.

Steph Brennan says unlike city areas homelessness in Western Sydney is less conspicuous.

STEPH BRENNAN: We were quite shocked to find people sleeping five kilometres inside the Blue Mountains National Park, in gullies, on the river, in bush settings, in tents, on the top of the Blue Mountains in the middle of winter, in caves, in their cars, in squats, in parks.

So out in Western Sydney rough sleeping and chronic homelessness is largely hidden compared to an inner built up city, which is high density, where people sleep in buildings, in parks, but it's a hell of a lot more accessible and easier to find.

Right, around Woolloomooloo, easy to find where the rough sleepers are. In Western Sydney they're hiding, and they're hiding because they're victims of violent assault. Most of the rough sleepers that we surveyed had been the victim of violent assault, sometimes more than five assaults in the previous few years.

DALLAS DODD: This place I'm taking you to, this did save me life and it's the first time I've been back here, virtually for a while now, and it kept me warm and safe through that real long hard winter we had last year.

LINDY KERIN: For Aboriginal man Dallas Dodd sleeping in a cave in the Blue Mountains was the safest place to be.

DALLAS DODD: This was my home for about four months. It feels good to be back. I'm sort of just giving my appreciation and thanks. It kept me alive. As you can see in the back of the shelter it's sort of, I've flattened it out as much as I can. I pushed all the dirt forward. So on those cold nights I could light a fire close by and also down low at the entrance of the cave type thing, a bit of shelter.

LINDY KERIN: Dallas Dodd's life turned upside down about four years ago. Work dried up for the hospitality worker and he struggled to pay the mortgage on his home at Boggabilla in western NSW. The bank foreclosed, leaving him homeless.

He headed to Sydney thinking there'd be more job opportunities but he quickly found things didn't improve.

DALLAS DODD: It was too expensive in the inner city so I came back to Western Suburbs, slept in me four-wheel-drive for a while, yeah a good 12 months or so between Wiseman's Ferry and the Blue Mountains, and then the car actually broke in a nutshell. So I invested in good camping equipment and stuff and I utilised the national parks for me home.

LINDY KERIN: Over 18 months Dallas Dodd set up camp in several caves in the Blue Mountains.

DALLAS DODD: The only thing that sort of got to it, they were in rock shelters, sandstone shelters type thing so they would get quite cold in the winter. The coldness of it, it is not the best place to be.

LINDY KERIN: What did you do to help sort of keep you warm?

DALLAS DODD: Well I was in areas where we weren't supposed to camp, so I had limited time to actually gather wood and stuff and I used to work in different places from Richmond to the inner city. So I'd get back there quite late some nights, So I had to sort of warm me self with fire, you know, the wood fire type thing but if I got back too late, you just sort of, it was too dark to get wood and stuff so you'd be in the shelter and you'd have to warm yourselves as much as possible, yeah.

LINDY KERIN: He says he moved around for his personal safety and used his survival skills to get by.

DALLAS DODD: I think the water is pretty high polluted in these parts of the world and even drinking so I didn't really take the chances too much. I did eat a wallaby and a possum once, but they were from some kids I think, I'm not too sure but I found them on the side of the road and I cooked them up and ate them. I took me chances.

It was through one of those earlier times when it rained a lot and I couldn't get out of the place. So here in winter time this environment it's quite, there was even a bit of snow in this area last year.

LINDY KERIN: Living in caves, particularly during winter, took its toll on Dallas' health. He ended up needing heart surgery.

Luckily for him the Wentworth Community Housing group found him a one bedroom unit in Western Sydney.

DALLAS DODD: And I'm just getting on the better side of health, so I'm sort of ready and raring to go again yeah.

LINDY KERIN: And so what does it feel like now to have a house and you know like you say, you feel like you're on the mend now from the heart operation?

DALLAS DODD: Oh it was good. It's been really good because it's sort of well you need it coming out, you know any type of heart surgery. So it's been good on the rehabilitation side. I probably wouldn't be sitting talking to you if it didn't happen yeah. So in my old Aboriginal mind, another day is another day, so I've just sort of got to keep going from there, yeah.

LINDY KERIN: Dallas Dodd is now putting his life experience to use and has started working with the Wentworth Community Housing group helping people in a similar situation. He says he knows what it's like to be down and out.

DALLAS DODD: Oh, it's mainly saying there is light at the end of the tunnel, strengthen their beliefs, their survival instincts, and believe that there is, no matter what spirit you believe in, what denomination, if you're strong in yourself and in your spirit, you will get there. Your prayers and stuff do get answered, yeah.

In a nutshell, just helping people to understand it's not the end of the world. We're human beings, these things happen and they're not the nicest things to happen but when you're in that moment just to keep strong and focussed.

LINDY KERIN: Laura Holmes also knows the challenges of life on the streets. Her experience included a stint living in an abandoned railway carriage.

LAURA HOLMES: It was incredibly shit, incredible, like disgusting. It was miserable, it really was. I was actually starting to get like physically sick from the emotional pressure of it all.

Like I was just living on the streets with another chick who was also living on the streets and we would find places together and get food together and if one of us got accommodation, you know, we'd bunk in the bed together and we were basically going halves in charity, and it was incredibly anyway.

We lived in a train for a little bit, and then the station dude trashed the doors and windows and the floor out of it so we couldn't sleep in it anymore. The dude like took a bloody axe to the floor and to the windows and doors and crap. So it wasn't sealed basically and had no floor, and peed all over our mattress so we couldn't even drag it somewhere else.

LINDY KERIN: When you look back at that now, like, how do you feel about that sort of life you had then?

LAURA HOLMES: I'm horrified still. That's, some of the days that I look back on in my memory, I can't believe that they're actually my memories. I can't believe that they could be anybody's memories. You know, like the first two or three nights I was here in Katoomba, I was asleep in the elevator at the bottom of the subway and I got spat on. Why? I don't know. I was asleep like half in my suitcase and I got spat on.

LINDY KERIN: Laura Holmes says she spent many years couch surfing around the state. But she says that didn't last.

LAURA HOLMES: And I'd basically run out of places to go and in that process between Dubbo, no before Dubbo was Goulburn and then Macquarie Fields at my Nanna's place and then Dubbo, then Lithgow, it was just, I went everywhere, and I'd worn out my welcome at everybody's house and I had nobody left to ring.

LINDY KERIN: That's when she decided to do her best to get a house and approached the Wentworth Community Housing group. She's been at her house in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains now for close to three years.

LAURA HOLMES: I cried for about a week after I moved into this house. Do you know the best thing about moving into this house was mashed potato. I don't know why, but mashed potato was the thing we loved the most when we moved in here. We were so in love with it because, you know, all the things you need to make mashed potato, you can't have while you're homeless.

Like you can have that yucky Deb stuff but I'm talkin' real mashed potatoes with milk and butter and salt and pepper and boiled just perfectly, and you know, you can't have that when you're homeless.

But I think we ate mashed potato with everything, everything. Even things you don't normally eat it with, like lasagne, we'd eat mashed potato with it, everything. We'd have shepherd's pie with mashed potato (laughs).

(Children's music, Laura playing with son)

LINDY KERIN: Laura Holmes has four young boys. Three were removed about five years ago but her youngest, toddler Cody, has stayed with her.

(Children's music, Laura playing with son)

She's hoping to get her other boys back when she can prove to the authorities that her life has changed.

LAURA HOLMES: This is the longest I've lived in house since I was 10 years old and they know that. DOCS (Department of Community Services) know my history from the get go. They know everything. Even though I lived in Bathurst for five years, I lived in seven different houses.

This is now starting to be stable. Like, now that I've been here for two years and it's going onto the third year, this will be classed as stable.

LINDY KERIN: The Federal Government wants to halve the rate of homelessness around the country by 2020 and reduce rough sleeping by 25 per cent.

Wentworth Housing's Steph Brennan says decision makers are starting to realise that the housing first model can help to reach that goal.

STEPH BRENNAN: If you look at both the Commonwealth and the New South Wales governments, they've both expressed support through their policy documents and their reform discussion papers, for exploring models that are shown to have made a big contribution to reducing homelessness and so that is through housing first approaches or ending homelessness approaches.

It's very, very simple. It's basically using the most resources for those who are most likely to die on the street, or through severe overcrowding, using the resources to provide the most expensive services, which is permanent supportive housing, which however are the most cost effective.

Because to permanently house someone and keep them housed, who is in that very high risk group, is cheaper than actually keeping them out on the street, where they use police cells, emergency departments, mental health units, drug and alcohol facilities etc.

LINDY KERIN: Six months after I first met Hannah, she got some good news. The Department of Housing offered her a two bedroom unit in Tregear in Western Sydney.

HANNAH: Yeah, come through. Hallway, bathroom, but the bath they have to replace or do something.

LINDY KERIN: Oh yeah.

HANNAH: It was like that when I moved in. My bedroom.

LINDY KERIN: Oh, it's lovely.

HANNAH: Yeah, this is my room.

LINDY KERIN: So this is looking really set up.

HANNAH: Yeah, what do you think, does it look alright?

LINDY KERIN: It's lovely. Yeah. And so how different is it sleeping on a real bed as opposed to a mattress in a squat?

HANNAH: The first night I got up at two o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah, two o'clock! I never sleep that late, ever. I think my body was in shock.

LINDY KERIN: The outside of the Department of Housing block is covered in graffiti and there are many broken windows in the multi-story building.

But for Hannah, this is the first real home she's had in 20 years.

HANNAH: Having security is the biggest thing. I'm secure and I'm much, much happier, couldn't be any happier, yeah it's wonderful. It's changed my point of view on a lot of things having a home. Happy, look honestly, words just can't explain how happy I am and as I get furniture and I get bits and pieces, it just makes it that all, it just makes it so much better.

LINDY KERIN: And it appears Hannah's life is turning around. She's given up sex work and has started chemotherapy for her cancer. She's also begun a methadone program.

HANNAH: Since I've been on methadone I haven't been, I haven't used. I've, look, everything has changed, everything.

LINDY KERIN: And what about the street work?

HANNAH: I haven't been back. Yeah. I haven't worked since I got this place, yeah, that all stopped.

(Music)

LINDY KERIN: Steph Brennan from Wentworth Community Housing says Hannah's story is a good example of how the housing first principle can work.

(Music)

STEPH BRENNAN: She's incredibly moved by the fact that she actually has a house, 'cause it takes a while for that to sink it for people, because they're used to being in survival mode and living in adrenalin and then their world narrows to just how do I get through that day, where do I go and get water to have a shower, or you know use my drugs or whatever it is.

So Hannah now, her world has expanded and she's immediately put into place what she said she wanted to do, which was end her drug dependence, get support for her health and wellbeing and now she's on that journey with support.

So it's a great example of how permanent supportive housing saves lives and a great example of how it works.

(Music)

LINDY KERIN: Hannah says she feels incredibly lucky and she can't believe how much her life has changed.

HANNAH: For as long as I can. I'm not going nowhere that's for sure. They'll have to move me out, with enforcement (laughs), they'll have to force me out.

(Music)

Everybody should have this, yeah, because it's like a big luxury. It still hasn't, you know, every day it hasn't dawned on me that this is really mine. This is my home, you know, so yeah it's fantastic, it's great. I'm really happy.

(Music)

SIMON SANTOW: That was Hannah ending that report from Lindy Kerin. You've been listening to a Radio Current Affairs documentary.